This commercial explains so much about my life

Obviously, the reason I don't have crowds of pretty young people in my house for spontaneous parties is because I lack decent coverage for my phone.  Now I feel bad- how many nights was I just sitting there at home, reading or watching tv, totally oblivious to the fact that between six and twenty good-looking partiers were standing right outside my door desperately trying to reach me on my phone to let me know that they were there waiting to gain entrance to my abode for a night of laughter, dancing, and watching me take more calls on my phone?

Now, I know what you're thinking- "hey, John, they could have just knocked."  To which I reply, no they couldn't, because that's not what the hip young people qualified to be my friends do nowadays.  Knocking is soooooo old school.  What are you, forty or something?  It's all about the connectivity, man.

Now, I know what you're thinking- "Um, ok, John- but you don't have a basement.  You've got the top level of a duplex.  Kind of hard to see how they couldn't reach you from your door 20 feet away..."  To which I reply, "shut up, that's why."

Watching this commercial with the sound off...did I get the message right?

Jill sits in the coffee shop ruminating over a cup of java and her own fleeting youth, wondering what she's going to do when she reaches the age at which people who actually have jobs "retire."

She makes a decision: She's going to try to seduce that nice young broker whose office she's been passing pretty much every day.  She gets up and leaves the coffee shop, passing that creepy stalker guy who is always sitting at the table near the door trying to make eye contact and drawing sketches that are almost certainly destined to be Exhibit A in the trial which takes place six months after her mysterious dissapearence.

Anyway, she waited too long to go after the broker guy- he's really not interested in this woman who is at least ten years older than he is besides being an obviously broke goldigger- but her visit isn't a total loss, because he casually mentions that she goes to the same coffee shop as one of his best clients, a scruffy weirdo who obsessively sketches portraits of his future victims- errrr, soulmates- as he drinks his coffee, in no hurry to get to an office because he's got more money than Mitt Romney.

With dollar signs in her eyes, Jill saunters back to her regular table at the coffee shop, and this time makes eye contact with Sleazy Creep But Hey The Clock Is Ticking And He's Got Money at the table next to the door.  Next thing you know, they are walking out the door together.  Happy Ending, right? Well, yeah probably, unless you are a morbid weirdo like me.

So....how'd I do?  Close?

Derek Jeter's retired. There are playoffs to be watched and enjoyed. Let's all just move on please.

Because MLB and Gatorade aren't quite satisfied with the six-month Derek Jeter wankfest that was the 2014 baseball season, we are being subjected to this ridiculous sloppy kiss Valentine featuring everyone's favorite Aw Shucks I'm Just a Ballplayer I Don't Deserve or Want all this Attention retiring New York Yankee.

No, not Mariano Rivera.  That was 2013's I"m Saying Goodbye Before The Season Starts But Gosh I Hope You Don't Make a Fuss ridiculously dragged out forced lovefest, featuring almost daily lectures from every color commentator in baseball that If We Aren't Eternally Grateful That We Had The Opportunity To Breathe the Same Air As These Legends There Is Something Seriously Wrong With Us.  But the message was not lost on the Most Humble Man Ever to Don a Uniform and Just Want to Play Baseball Please Don't Make a Big Deal of it.

This year it was Derek Jeter's turn to casually announce his retirement during spring training Just in Case Some Teams I Don't Know Maybe Want to Do Something Special Just Sayin'.  This year we had another Unassuming Humble Yankee spending month after month reluctantly participating in pregame ceremonies including gaudy gifts which wasted everybody's time and delayed starts.  And we got one tribute after another from teary-eyed ESPN yakkers who couldn't stop reminding us what an incredible human being Jeter was because all he did was go out every day and play ball for more money in a month than most of us will make in our lifetimes, gosh what a champion on and OFF the field.

And all because MLB and Gatorade flatly refuse to understand the concept that Derek Jeter was a beloved player in exactly one city, to exactly one fan base.  Just because the bland, nonpartisan morons at MLB and Gatorade think that Jeter was just adored by all baseball fans doesn't make it so.  As a Red Sox fan, I don't expect anyone but Red Sox fans to wish David Ortiz a fond farewell when he exits the stage.  But somehow, I was supposed to love Jeter because I love baseball?  To hell with that.

And since the Laws of God and Nature have been brutally violated and we aren't permitted to witness His Greatness during the playoffs this season (despite Bud Selig's Operation Red Sox And Yankees in the Playoffs Every Year rigging- note to successor- maybe we need a few more Wild Card spots?) we'll just have to be happy with these nauseating commercials.  Or hit the mute button, fast.  Gag.

And here's the worst part- there are a whole SERIES of these Dodge Dart ads!

These aren't commercial satires.  These are actual commercials.  You know, put together by a company that actually wants you to buy it's product, and not grab a gun, head to the advertising agency that produced this, and kill everyone in the building you can find until the police show up and put you out of your misery.

And all for a Dodge Dart.  That's right, a Dodge Dart.  A $15,000, $199 per month piece of crap Dodge Dart.  You've got to be kidding me, right?

Nope.  This neighbor really, really wants to touch this other neighbor's Dodge Dart- and the other neighbor "won't let him" (personally, if I were a major nutcase like Neighbor #1, I wouldn't be waiting for "permission" to touch his garbage car.  I'd just touch the damn car and ask what the hell he planned to do about it.   But if I were a major nutcase like Neighbor #1, I'd be a really, really sad human being, and the very thought is sending me into a spiral of depression so I'd better stop right now.

If I were Neighbor #2, I'd wonder what horrible turn my life took where I'm so proud of being the owner of a freaking Dodge Dart in the first place.  Because he might be even sadder than Neighbor #1.  Well, ok, he's not- but it's closer than it has any right to be.

If I had money, I'd start hoarding diet soda, because I suspect that it's going away....

There are days when I think that I really don't have enough friends.  Then I watch commercials like these and think "If I had more friends, they might be like this."  And then I realize, I have plenty of friends, and attempting to expand my base of friends is just too risky.

As to this commercial- I don't get the logic being used here.  "If you can pack this much drama into ten seconds, then yes we can pack this much flavor into ten calories...?" Huh?  I like Diet 7 Up.  I think it's always had one calorie.  I can't see how adding another 9 calories is going to add a lot of flavor, or why I'd want a lot more flavor anyway.  Come to think of it, I like Diet Coke too, and that also has one calorie.  I don't like Coke Zero, because it tastes too much like Tab (actually it tastes exactly like Tab, which means it tastes like diet soda tasted back in the 60s, when they didn't know how to make diet soda yet- jeesh, they had chocolate diet soda back then. I can still taste it.)  Isn't my life interesting?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the trend of adding a few calories to Diet Soda- in fact, I should be more surprised that it took so long, since we've been adding fat, salt and sugar to pretty much everything else for decades now.  Portions have been getting bigger, burgers have been getting greasier, and we seem obsessed with finding new places to stick more empty calories.  Double Stuff Oreos seem downright quaint.

So welcome to the show, diet soda.  Why do I suspect that in a few years, the average can will have about 70 calories and will come with a hot buttered biscuit or at least a bag of Fritos?

Warning: This Chevy Ad may be used to induce vomiting

1.  Rugged, unshaven Manly Man who wears a cowboy hat and lives on ranch equipped with barn: Check.

2.  Hokey, cliche'd country music song about lovin' one woman and one dog and one truck and don' what needs to be done and bein' proud to be an Amerikun and shoutin' somethin' or another from the mountainside:  Check.

3.  Shots of sunsets and Real Western Landscapes and Trucks bouncin' along said landscapes and kickin' up dirt:  Check

4.  Generic Hallmark Movie Family sittin' in truck bed starin' over cliff while hokey, cliche'd country music song comes to merciful end:  Check.

5.  More shots of truck haulin' and pullin' with chains 'cause that's what maybe 1 percent of people who actually buy these trucks do with them (the other 99 percent don't haul anything other than kids and groceries and don't maneuver anything more challanging than the speed bumps in front of Hunter's preschool)- Check.

Does the final product look like a Re-Elect Reagan ad from 1984?  Does it look like you could switch out all the dialogue and use it to sell Viagra?  Then you've got yourself a truck commercial, son.  Congratulations.  Go pop yourself a beer an' sit by the fire an' swap stories while gettin' a good scorch on steaks the size of saddle blankets.

Dominos Health Insurance doesn't cover repetitive stress injuries- oh, did we forget to tell you that?

I couldn't find it on YouTube (if I do in the future, I'll replace this clip with the actual ad) but anyone who has watched any football or baseball this fall knows that Dominos is running an ad "celebrating" the fact that one of it's underpaid minions is actually taking pride in the fact that he can give himself carpal tunnel syndrome in the service of his corporate masters (I really like the "pretty good" this guy gets from the choad with the stopwatch- excuse me, iPhone with stopwatch app.  Warms the heart.

Seriously- Advanced Box Folding For The Cameras has become something of a fad for the Dominos ad people, and you can bet they couldn't be happier.  "Look, everybody- our Pizza Artists make minimum wage and work rotating shifts and are learning no skills that will make them more marketable in other endeavors that DO pay better- but check out how fast they can make boxes, ain't it cool?"

Maybe they should ad sound effects- like a whip cracking, or a manager warning "hey, Bob in third shift makes boxes faster than you are-- and he's got a cousin looking for work...just sayin'......"

But in the meantime, let's all "enjoy" watching Dominos employees working for slave wages frantically proving to the Boss that he really doesn't have to invest in that automated box-folding machine 'cause See I Can Go Faster I Promise.   Or rather, you all feel free to enjoy it.  I'll be too busy mourning the death of shame at the hands of Capitalism.  Again.